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The World Cup Is at a Fever Pitch

Dutch soccer fans celebrate their team’s victory over Mexico on Copacabana beach in Rio de Janeiro.

Associated Press

It’s not difficult to see why so many more Americans have cared about this year’s World Cup. Apart from the U.S. team’s strong showing, the tournament achieved a new apex over the weekend when the opening round of knockout games justified staying indoors on a beautiful day to watch several hours of sports—just as God intended. “Something unexpected has gone on with this World Cup,” writes Sports on Earth’s Chuck Culpepper. “With 52 matches down and 12 to go, this one is elbowing into best-sports-event range. Yes, it did begin with a head start — it’s transpiring in Brazil — but it has rocketed from there.”

It began on Saturday, when Brazil and Chile played neck-and-neck for 120 minutes—featuring one waved-off goal and a near score in the final seconds of the match—before the Brazilians managed to win on penalty kicks, nearly dissolving from nerves in the aftermath. It continued through Colombia and Uruguay’s match, which if a bit undramatic was only so because the latter’s best player was suspended for biting. Now, the forthcoming quarterfinal between the Brazil and Colombia promises to be one of the tournament’s best matches. Brazil carries the expectations of its host country, while Colombia is the new fan favorite. “It’s not just their goal celebration dance, which is enough to win hearts across the globe, but their passion and their fearlessness,” writes the New Republic’s Elaine Teng. “They’ve scored the most goals of any team this tournament, and they’ve revelled in each one. And within the past month, James Rodriguez has gone from unknown talent to a household name, a star on the biggest stage there is.” (It’s fitting that the tournament’s most exciting player has found a fan in the world’s most exciting basketball player.)

Sunday was madness, too. Mexico shattered hearts by once again losing in the first round of the knockout stage, past which they haven’t advanced since 1986. El Tri had things wrapped, but the Netherlands managed to tie things up in the 88th minute. A few minutes later, they took the lead on a controversial penalty kick that inspired some post-game shoving and a slight admisison of guilt. “It’s a shame, really,” writes Sports Illustrated’s Grant Wahl. “You can’t help but leave this game thinking that Mexico lost this game more than the Netherlands won it.” (The Dutch weren’t necessarily gracious in victory, either.) Then, Greece and Costa Rica went down to the wire after Greece managed to tie things up in the match’s final minutes—a recurring theme, if you didn’t notice—before eventually succumbing on penalty kicks.

Monday brings an Algeria-Germany rematch in which the Algerians will seek to correct a long-standing injustice, along with France-Nigeria. Then, Tuesday’s U.S.-Belgium match may force the entire Stateside workforce to shut down from lack of productivity—or, at least, inspire some creative usage of lunch breaks. “The experience we’ve all been having during these games this summer has been a collective one,” writes Sports on Earth’s Will Leitch. “It’s tough to find those anymore.” With some luck, we’ll have one more.

* * *

Think of Jason Kidd’s coaching acumen, and you don’t see a brilliantly mocked up white board—you see a spilled soda, and the public demotion of a highly paid assistant just a few weeks into the season. The Brooklyn Nets were, by every relevant metric, an alright team. They began the year with the largest payroll in league history, limped to a 10-21 start, managed to score a playoff berth, and lost to the Miami Heat in five games—the equivalent of a gold star for participation. But this mild success was apparently enough to convince Kidd that he should be doing so much more: Over the weekend, reports emerged that he attempted to gain control over basketball operations within the Nets organization. Only a handful of coachful in the league have such power, and most of them have been around much longer than Kidd has—but he made the power play, which apparently failed, and may now push him to the Milwaukee Bucks in a coaching position.

It’s an unlikely story, one that was broken on a message board and seems transparently Machiavellian for the relatively mundane world of corporate management. For the image-conscious Nets, it makes sense that something so dramatic would topple their carefully manicured presentation. “It was never about substance. It was never about qualifications or achievement, because Kidd had neither as a coach. If it were any other market in the league, they might have been laughed out of town,” Dave D’Alessandro writes for the Star-Ledger. “But the Nets did this primarily for one reason: They had decided that they must make an effort to win the market in the only way they know: through headlines, because it couldn’t happen through performance.”

Kidd owns a piece of the team, and countless banners have been flown trumpeting his importance to the franchise. Still, the Nets are willing to let him go provided the proper compensation is made, and the Bucks are willing to make him their coach because of his friendship with the new owner. Kidd may go to the Bucks, and before long, he may try to make the same power play for control—and why not, when it’s proven so easy to find work? “So really, the question shouldn’t be: He really went to management and tried to big-foot Billy King, and really tried to get himself a prominent decision-making voice after a year in which the Nets finished sixth in an historically bad Eastern Conference and finished nowhere close to the franchise’s stated mission of winning a title?” Mike Vaccaro writes for the New York Post. “It should be this: What took him so long?” Indeed, Kidd is back where he belongs.

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